BFT 73: The Reveal

[Big Al]

Thanks to everyone who helped me celebrate my birthday this month with the Blindfold Test. It looks like everyone either enjoyed it or thought it was one of the weirdest things they’d ever heard. Which is precisely what I was going for!

In keeping with the theme that “It’s All About Me,” there are stories associated with many of the tracks. HOWEVER, to avoid inducing comas from you guys, I’m gonna list the songs here, and then give details and stories in subsequent posts.

So, without further ado, the answers, listed by artist, track name, and album (with the exceptions of tracks 1, 2, and 24):

1. The Big Chor-Al, “Abide with Monks Spinning in Their Graves/Well, You REALLY Shouldn't Have”

2. A mashup I made of “Happy Birthday” by Grady Martin And The Slew Foot Five, with a drum-loop I made sampled from the Beatles’ “Birthday”

3. Dizzy Gillespie, “Be's That Way,” Dizzy Gillespie with Gil Fuller & the Monterey Jazz Festival Orchestra

4. Duke Pearson Big Band, “Mississippi Dip,” Introducing the Duke Pearson Big Band

5. Johnny Lytle, “Samba Saravah,” A Man and a Woman

6. Jimmy McGriff, “Oh Happy Day,” A Thing to Come By

7. Stanley Turrentine & Shirley Scott, “Boogaloo,” Common Touch

8. Jimmy Smith, “Burning Spear,” Livin' it Up

9. Mike Westbrook, “Love Song No. 1,” Love Songs

10. Ed Thigpen, “Cielito Lindo,” Out of the Storm

11. Xavier Cugat, “Green Eyes,” one of those multi-LP various artists compilations put out by Readers Digest and (presumably) RCA/Bluebird

12. Ventures, “Poinciana,” The Latin Album

13. Rosemary Clooney with Duke Ellington and His Orchestra, “Blue Rose,” Blue Rose

14. Herbie Mann with Jobim, “Amor em Paz,” a self-titled album on Atlantic 8105

15. Wynton Kelly, “Bobo,” Undiluted

16. Lionel Hampton, “Fiddle Diddle,” Chronological Classics 1938-1939

17. Terry Gibbs, “Pauline's Place,” Take it from Me

18. Herbie Hancock, “Curiosity,” Blow-Up soundtrack

19. Ralph Sharon, “Someone Like You,” Do I Hear a Waltz?

20. Ralph Burns, “Look No Further,” No Strings (with Strings)

21. Hugh Masekela, “The Big Apple,” Home is Where the Music Is

22. Gabor Szabo, “All is Well,” Rambler

23. Paul Abella Trio, “Amazing Grace,” Mainstreamism

24. Me finding an excuse to run my acoustic fretless bass through a distortion pedal and a wah pedal while playing one of the themes to “Match Game!”

Thanks for playing. Now, on to the recording details, personnel, and other stories!

[jeffcrom]

D'oh! For the second time in my short BFT career, I failed to identify a track I have in my record/CD collection: Duke Pearson.

I still think the vocalization of Monk's "Abide With Me" arrangement was just too cool.

[Big Al]

Thanks, Jeff! That really does mean a lot, as the following stories may show:

TRACK 1

“Abide with Monks Spinning in Their Graves/Well, You REALLY Shouldn’t Have”

The Big Al Chorale

Recorded at my next-door neighbor’s house, February 27, 2010

So my next-door neighbor has a little home-studio and has his own CD out and he allows me to come over and record the odd song now and again. Unfortunately, I’m such a procrastinator that, as of this writing, the song STILL isn’t done (just needs the drum loops and some backing vocals). But right before we commenced recording, I had taken my son over to his friend’s house. On the way back home, I put in MONK’S MUSIC. Y’all know how it starts off with just the horns playing “Abide With Me?” I love to sing along with that! All four parts! Jeffcrom even nailed the inspiration for this song: why hasn’t anyone else done this? I mean, if I can do this, how hard can it be, right? So I got back to my buddy’s house and just asked him to bear with me while I indulged in a little vocal exercise. It helped that he is also a fan of the old hymns and something of a jazz fan himself, so he was happy to oblige. The bass, tenor, and alto parts were done in one take each, and the soprano part is the second take, at which point I realized that part wasn’t going to get any better. I’d originally intended this to sound a little more serious than how it turned out, but after we’d mixed it and I listened to it, I realized I truly had something authentically and monumentally AWFUL! I love to sing, but I sure sound better in the context of other singers. Other singers who aren’t ME, that is. As a solo singer, I’m mediocre at best; multiply that by four and you’re starting to hit “Plan 9 from Outer Space” territory!

The reason for the plural "Monks" in the title is because this was on a Monk album, but it wasn't his arrangement either. The name of the arranger of this hymn? William H. MONK!

Okay, so that’s the story behind the hymn, but what about that racket after the hymn? Well, those of you who have MONK’S MUSIC know that track 2 of that album is “Well, You Needn’t,” and this is where the Freberg idea came to play. I told my friend that, at the end of each vocal track of “Abide with Me,” I was gonna make what sounded like random noise, but I promised him it would make sense when we mixed it all together. I still don't know if I lived up to that promise, but it was fun pretending to be Bobby McFerrin for a couple seconds, nonetheless!

I don’t know how many of y’all are fans of Stan Freberg, but I love him. When I was in fifth grade, our class was asked to name our favorite song. I chose Freberg’s parody of “The Yellow Rose of Texas” and promptly got laughed at by my classmates who were listing AC/DC, Joan Jett, and whatever else was popular in 1980. Looking back now, I'm glad I made that choice. I wonder how many of my classmates remember who they picked? (assuming they even think about things like this). So, this is my small tribute to one of my heroes, musical or otherwise. The “close enough for jazz” line is from Freberg’s parody of “Heartbreak Hotel” and was once quoted in “The Book of Rock Lists” to help describe Scotty Moore’s guitar solo from the original Elvis record as “The Worst Guitar Solo on Record!”

TRACK 2

“Happy Birthday to You” by Grady Martin And The Slew Foot Five, with a drum-loop I made sampled from the Beatles’ “Birthday”

Hastily assembled on the final day of my youth, March 1, 2010 (Kinda fitting, I guess, that track 2 would be a birthday song since my birthday is on the 2nd!)

That’s right, I concocted this little brew! It is with this that I pay tribute to my Grampa, who would've turned 100 last year, as I find out with each day just how alike we were. One thing he and I shared, in addition to a love of vinyl and record shopping, is a love of tinkering with new gadgets. I must’ve been five or six when Grampa showed me how to operate this hand-held cassette recorder and microphone he’d bought, and particularly how to record songs from our favorite records onto tapes. I still remember the time we recorded the “Happy Birthday to You” to a tape, and I have both the tape and the original record with me. I literally wore out the grooves of this record, and what you’re hearing is what was recorded to cassette. The record itself is one of those homogenous “party” records Vocalion put out in the 50’s, which I can only presume was put together to challenge Columbia’s “Sing Along with Mitch” series of records (and, really, you haven’t lived until you’ve heard one of THOSE records. If you ever wondered how and/or why the 60’s had to happen, one listen to any of these records will answer that question quickly enough!)

So, with this being my birthday and all, I was all set to just put this track on there and leave it at that. And then, inspiration just sometimes happens for no other reason than just because. As I said, Grampa loved to tinker, and so do I. I wondered how it would sound if I made a drum-loop of the drum-beat from the Beatles “Birthday” and overdubbed it on top of the old record? In one of those magic moments that only seems to happen in the movies, I spent a frantic three hours clipping four measures each of the three sections of the Beatles tune, then slowing it down so that the tempos matched, and voila: a near-perfect match in both tempo AND key!!! I wanted to leap up and shout “We’ve got a hit!!!”

Grampa died December, 1978, when I was 8. I don't have too many memories of him, but what I have has lasted the last 32 years. Lately, I’ve been thinking about how much he would’ve loved computers and the whole digital revolution, simply because my dad embraced the technology early on. I like to think Grampa would’ve liked my little mashup with one of his favorite records. I’ve played this for my son and some of my Beatles-friends, and they’ve all said pretty much the same thing: “Whoa! That’s COOL!!!” Which is plenty for me!

TRACK 3

Dizzy Gillespie, “Be's That Way,” Dizzy Gillespie with Gil Fuller & the Monterey Jazz Festival Orchestra

Recorded June 8 & 9, 1965

Featuring Sweets Edison dueling with Dizzy. I’m too lazy to list the millions of other players on this session.

I put this in once I figured out there were a lot of groove-based songs coming together in this collection. And also because of how close I came to selling this. This song changed my mind. I’m glad it did. This is a FANTASTIC CD, and grooves like this are right up my alley. The placement as track #3 happened by accident: it just happened to play right after the “Birthday” mashup when I was auditioning tracks, and just loved the segue way between the two tracks.

TRACK 4

Duke Pearson, “Mississippi Dip,” Introducing the Duke Pearson Big Band

Randy Brecker, Burt Collins, Joe Shepley, Marvin Stamm – trumpets; Garnett Brown, Benny Powell, Julian Priester – trombones; Kenny Rupp – bass trombone; Jerry Dodgion, Al Gibbons – alto saxes; Frank Foster, Lew Tabackin – tenor saxes; Pepper Adams – baritone sax; Duke Pearson – piano, arranger; Bob Cranshaw – bass; Mickey Roker – drums (Copied from the jazzdisco.org site)

Recorded December 15, 1967

Sangrey nailed Randy Brecker on this, which I’d forgotten all about, because I put this track on here for decidedly non-jazz reasons: one because of the groove, and two because of the fact that this is a bona fide MONO pressing! BLP-4276! That’s what it says on the record label! Maybe it’s a fold-down, maybe it’s not, maybe it doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things (nobody else seemed to notice or give a rat’s rear-end), but how often does one stumble across vintage Blue Note vinyl in a used record shop for only SIX BUCKS? And have the opportunity to brag about it in a forum such as this?

I told you this was gonna be all about ME!

TRACK 5

Johnny Lytle, “Samba Saravah,” A Man and a Woman

Johnny Lytle – vibes; Jim Foster – organ; Richard Davis – bass; Johnny Pacheco – Latin drums; Bill Hinnant - drums

Recorded 1967

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: thank God for Half-Price Books! This was actually found in the Rock section of the LPs. Figure for $4.98, can’t go wrong, right? Besides, I’ve always loved Lytle’s “Village Caller” on Riverside, maybe this’ll have the same kind of groove. Boy, does it ever! They’re not all like this, but they are wonderful. And that’s another thing I love about the BFT: unearthing more records to look for! I had no idea there were more Lytle Solid State records out there! Yet ANOTHER reason(s) to hit the used vinyl shops!

Of course, if Mosaic would just make a Select outta the Complete Solid State Recordings of Johnny Lytle, it would save us all a lotta trouble. I think I’ll e-mail them once I’m done here.

Oh, and another thing: y’know that wood-glue trick for cleaning records? I wish I’d copied this BEFORE I put the glue on the record so y’all coulda heard how horrible side one sounded before I tried the wood-glue trick. It doesn’t always save a record (some are just beyond repair), but I’ve tried this trick on a fair number of records where the resulting difference was mind-blowing. This is one of those records!

Finally, who woulda guessed that was Richard Davis on the bass? He seems under-utilized here, but for this song and this groove, what he lays down is perfect. In other words, typical Richard Davis!

To be continued....

[Bright Moments]

To be continued....

when?

[Big Al]

Man, you must be reading my mind! I just came across this the other night and realized I never finished it (never finished BFT 54, either. Yikes!). Thanks for the reminder, though!

[Bright Moments]

Man, you must be reading my mind! I just came across this the other night and realized I never finished it (never finished BFT 54, either. Yikes!). Thanks for the reminder, though!

i finally got to listen to (and enjoy) this BFT!! thanks for your hard work. The skit at the end had me and my kids in stiches!

[Big Al]

Man, you must be reading my mind! I just came across this the other night and realized I never finished it (never finished BFT 54, either. Yikes!). Thanks for the reminder, though!

i finally got to listen to (and enjoy) this BFT!! thanks for your hard work. The skit at the end had me and my kids in stiches!

Cool!!! But did you notice track 9? That one was especially for you, which I'm gonna detail in the answers (which I promise I'm gonna write!)

[Bright Moments]

Man, you must be reading my mind! I just came across this the other night and realized I never finished it (never finished BFT 54, either. Yikes!). Thanks for the reminder, though!

i finally got to listen to (and enjoy) this BFT!! thanks for your hard work. The skit at the end had me and my kids in stiches!

Cool!!! But did you notice track 9? That one was especially for you, which I'm gonna detail in the answers (which I promise I'm gonna write!)

indeed i did!

[Big Al]

Man, you must be reading my mind! I just came across this the other night and realized I never finished it (never finished BFT 54, either. Yikes!). Thanks for the reminder, though!

i finally got to listen to (and enjoy) this BFT!! thanks for your hard work. The skit at the end had me and my kids in stiches!

Cool!!! But did you notice track 9? That one was especially for you, which I'm gonna detail in the answers (which I promise I'm gonna write!)

indeed i did!

Groovy!

Edited September 16, 2010 by Big Al